Beginner's Guide

Verify and claim your website URL

The Website URL setting in your Google Merchant Center account is important because it verifies that you have the right to upload product listings for the website specified in your account. The links provided in your data feed must match the URL, including the top-level domain (e.g. .com, .net) registered in your Google Merchant Center account. Product listings submitted for any URL other than the one registered in your Google Merchant Center account will not be processed successfully.

Determine the exact website URL to verify and claim

To ensure that all your uploaded listings are accepted by Google, you'll need to determine the right website URL to verify and claim.

For simple shops, the best URL to verify is the top-level URL of your shop, e.g. http://example.co.uk. If your shop resides on a sub-host or on a path, you should include those in your URL, e.g. http://shops.example.co.uk/myshop

Note: Verifying http://www.example.co.uk only covers the www sub-host and any paths underneath, but not the entire domain. To cover the entire domain, you must verify and claim the root domain, e.g. http://example.com

When entering a URL, the format must follow the rules below:

The URL must start with either http:// or https://

No IP addresses are allowed, e.g. http://10.127.127.127

No ports are allowed, e.g. http://www.example.co.uk:8080

No fragments are allowed, e.g. http://www.example.co.uk#top

Verify your website URL

You'll use Google Webmaster Tools to add and verify your website URL. Once you verify your domain in Google Webmaster Tools, you'll link that account to Merchant Center through a shared login to both accounts.

New URL Verification

If your site does not already have a verified Google Webmaster Tools account, please follow the steps below to verify your domain:

1. In the General tab of the Settings section of your Merchant Center account, click "Verify this URL" after entering and saving your domain.

2. You will be taken to Google Webmaster Tools, where you'll see various methods for verifying your domain.

3. Choose one of the methods provided and follow the steps to verify your domain

Note: If you do not already have a Google Webmaster Tools account, please make sure that you complete the verification steps with the same Google Account that is your login email for Merchant Center, for which you wish to verify the URL.

Existing URL Verification

If your domain is already verified in an existing Google Webmaster Tools account, the easiest option for verification is to add the Google Account login email address for your Merchant Center account as an owner (not as a user) of the verified Google Webmaster Tools account. Alternatively, you can add a Google Account login email address that is an existing owner in the Google Webmaster Tools account as a login to your Merchant Center account. You can also follow the steps listed in the section above to create an additional verified account for this domain.

Claim your website URL

After your website URL is verified in Google Webmaster Tools, you will need to claim the website URL in Google Merchant Center. In order for us to associate your verified URL in Merchant Center, you will have to use the same login email for both your Merchant Center and Webmaster Tools accounts.

While more than one person can verify the same URL, Google Merchant Center requires that only one account holds the right to upload and publish product listings for this URL. For this reason, you need to claim your website URL in Google Merchant Center after you have verified it in Webmaster Tools. To claim your website URL:

If another authorised owner of the website in question verifies and claims the website URL successfully, you will lose the claim and will be notified by email. We'll let you know who the clashing account is (you can also find this information in your Google Webmaster tools account) in order for you to resolve the situation yourself, where possible. If unsuccessful, you can choose either to verify and claim a different URL or contact us.

If you lose your 'verified' status in Google Webmaster Tools, you will lose the claim. You can lose the 'verified' status because the identifying Meta tag or HTML file has been removed from the website. If you've lost your 'verified' status in Google Webmaster tools, you will need to follow the steps above to verify and claim your website URL again.

If you choose to verify and claim a different URL in Google Merchant Center, you will lose the claim for your previously verified and claimed website URL. Follow the steps above if you would like to reclaim your previous URL.

Multi-client accounts

Multi-client accounts allow merchants to submit items for more than one website domain. Learn more.

Multi-client account owners may verify and claim a Website URL for the parent account. Typically, the parent multi-client account should verify and claim the top-level domain, e.g. http://example.co.uk. Each sub-account will then inherit the claim automatically and can submit product listings for any sub-host or path under the claimed URL tree.

Alternatively, each sub-account can also choose to verify and claim a completely different Website URL instead.

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